Tag Archives: Midlife Crises

“I used to think, before I had one, that the midlife crisis was something that happened to weak-minded chumps who didn’t have backbone. Now I believe that midlife crises are structural: they’re to do with your whole life. They’re to do with facing things that haven’t been faced before. And what gets them going is a hysterical overreaction to the certainty that you’re going to die.

One of the definitions of youth is that you think death and decay are things that happen to other people; some part of youthinks, funnily enough, in my case it’s not going to happen. Though you’re intellectually persuaded that it will, a bit of you goes on believing it’s just a rumor as far as you’re concerned.

Milan Kundera said that ‘we’re children throughout our lives because every 10 years we have to learn a new set of rules.’ I think that’s a good remark, and I think it’s spectacularly true of the mid-life. When I was 40, I thought I knew everything. I was even almost bored by the transparency of everything and how clear life was to me. Then suddenly, I was pitched up on the shore of the mid-life, and I thought, ‘I don’t know anything anymore! I’ve got to learn all this stuff anew.’ And that’s a frightening thought, but it’s an exciting thought, too. And you do pick up these sort of hints and pointers about how you can live the next period of your life.”

Later in the conversation, Charlie remarks, “You’ve said you’re happy about all this but also, in some ways, saddened.” Amis’s reply: “Well, I’m sad about the sunderings that proved necessary, or at any rate have happened in my life. Friends. Family. Wife. It all feels unknown out there now.”